The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Majer

How many of us have dreamt of being able to brag about our achievements, openly and honestly, showing off our trophies for all the world to see without the risk of being sidelined for lewd behavior? Well, with selling you absolutely can! If you have it, you get to flaunt it and let people know that you’re as good as you are – it’s important for your reputation. Remember, you’re going to invest an enormous amount of time and effort in your reputation because that is the vehicle that will bring regular customers coming back for more and that will bring new customers running to you for advice. The more you sell and the better salesman you become, the more you get to brag, the greater your reputation, the more you sell, and on it goes….

It’s a process of continuous improvement and the better you are at it the more you’re able to freely admit it. That’s not to say you can get away with being an arrogant braggart. You need to embrace an air of sophistication that spells quality – and still have that charm that ropes the customers in. You can swagger a little, and it definitely helps to flirt, but don’t put your clients off by being a loudmouth who’s too big for his boots. Be aware of setting yourself up for a dive into mediocrity. When you’re too good, and you know it, you may just become too comfortable with your performance and forget to improve on it. That’s when you’ll find yourself slipping and losing sales.

On the other hand, if you’re battling with selling, don’t ever think that it’s appropriate to place yourself at the mercy of the client in order to get a sale. You must always maintain a high standard of self-respect. There is never a need to compromise on your personal values just so that you can get the deal done. It’s also important to earn the client’s respect before he’ll earnestly take note of what you have to say. Throwing yourself at his mercy only creates the impression that you’ll do anything for the sale – that you’re desperate, you’re easy, you’re begging and pleading. He’ll think he can take advantage of you and negotiate a cheaper price without much of a fight from your side. You’ll simply get used, exploited and tossed aside. That’s not selling! Create an image that you can be proud of – put yourself on display, as if you’re a walking, living, breathing advert in your line of expertise.

If you’re passionate about your sales career you will naturally exude a contagious energy, a zeal for what you strive to accomplish each day. This will attract the attention of those who seek your advice and assistance.  You become successful while remaining professional and uncompromising in your values. If you’re more of a risqué type and you don’t mind being adventurous, you could imagine yourself virtually “seducing” the client… toying with him, teasing him, to attract his (or her) attention. To each his own – it’s about personal preference.

When you’re in sales, people don’t mind hearing you brag about what a success you’ve become and how you’ve managed to refine your skill. It’s not like bragging about sex; nobody’s going to roll their eyes. On the contrary, they may just be waiting for you to finish talking to your current customer so they can be next in line to benefit from your skill. How awesome to have clients lining up to spend time with you! Your reputation is out there flying like a flag for all the world to see and they’re watching it! When you’ve achieved a sales status like this, it’s perfectly acceptable to brag and say, “Yes! I’m that good!” and show off proof of that with a massive stack of new orders.

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The secret of being successful in selling is the ability to transmit your energy and your enthusiasm about your product or service. If you fail to do that, you will not sell. If you want to learn how to transfer your energy into sales enthusiasm to improve your career and life, get my book “Selling Is Better Than Sex” today!

www.SellingIsBetter.com

This is one of those videos, that makes you think.

Years it took to reach a market audience of 50 million:

• Radio - 38 years
• TV - 13 years
• Internet - 4 years
• iPod - 3 years
• Facebook - 2 years

It is estimated that a week’s worth of the New York Times contains more information than a person was likely to come across in a lifetime in the 18th century (I’ve used this info in my book “Trigger events” in 2007!)

There are 31 Billion searches on Google every month. In 2006, this number was 2.7 Billion. To whom were these questions addressed B.G.? (Before Google)

So what does it all mean?

The 21st Century changes the rules of engagement. Business world is changing daily, and if you are not at least trying to keep up with the changes, you are becoming the dinosaur of sales. Read more about selling in 21st Century.

“Wanting connections, we found connections — always, everywhere, and between everything. The world exploded in a whirling network of kinships, where everything pointed to everything else, everything explained everything else …” - Foucault’s Pendulum, Umberto Eco, 1988 (My favourite author!)

You’re a sales genius. They love you; they trust you; and some of them keep on coming back for more. However, you can very suddenly go from Hero to Zero if you don’t keep your sales figures up to scratch. As a sales genius, you’ll be working hard to have deals lined up for weeks in advance so that you’re not enslaved by what has been referred to as “the Curse of a Sales Job”.

Working month to month, just treading water in the hopes of staying afloat, does not make you a super-sales-hero. You need to plan ahead – take the long-term view and line up those deals to ensure you maintain your status. This is what makes you great – and able to achieve your fullest potential. Again, this is hard work and dedication – but it is fuelled by your passion for selling and your dream to achieve all that you can.

You must realize that customers are available for everyone, at any time and at any age. Not so when it comes to sex, right? No – even with a reputation as a serial womanizer, you can go for weeks or even months at a time without having a beautiful woman to accompany you to social gatherings. That’s the quickest way to dissolve your reputation! But the beauty of sales is that there will always be someone who needs something that you’ve got – you just need to find them and approach the sale in an appropriate way, depending on their needs.

And, with selling, buying leads is also a legitimate way to generate sales – it’s not against the law, either. So when you find that you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of customers and your pipeline is running dry, you can absolutely purchase a list of leads. However, when your sex life is becoming somewhat dull, or non-existent, paying for a “lead” is not exactly the way you want to go (nor is it legal – in most countries, anyway).

Cruising the internet in search of customers is perfectly acceptable too. You won’t find yourself in any moral or ethical dilemma when paying for leads. And you won’t get fired for typing “selling techniques” into a search engine at work. But wait and see what happens when you’re caught surfing the net for tips on “how to please…”

With all the technology that we have available to us today, the act of “cold-calling” is just about becoming a thing of the past. You can access so much information about a client before you even get to the first meeting. As a result, you will be better prepared than if you had just picked up the phone and dialed a random number in the hopes of charming yourself into another sale. With as much “pre-knowledge” of the customer as possible, you’re equipped to ask all of the right questions, and you’re able to listen to the client’s needs with a greater understanding.

If you’ve carried out your research thoroughly, half of the work is done. It can no longer be termed a “cold call” when you’re already warming up to the client and the operations of his business. Rather, you have the upper hand as you begin the call, knowing more about your client than he does about you. This means that you’re better prepared to approach him in an effective manner and better prepared to address the type of business that he has and the problems he might be encountering.

And besides, you don’t have to dial a “900” number to sell over the phone. If you want customers from faraway places, it’s not that difficult and not that expensive either. You just pick up the phone, send an e-mail, and use any modern technology that you have on hand. But try finding your dream woman from some faraway exotic place – you’ll pay a fortune in travelling costs and accommodation, and that’s before you’ve even taken her out to dinner.

Yet again we can prove that selling is better than sex – and far less risky too. Finding new customers won’t get you into trouble either. You can have as many customers as you want, and as many as you can handle!

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The secret of being successful in selling is the ability to transmit your energy and your enthusiasm about your product or service. If you fail to do that, you will not sell. If you want to learn how to transfer your energy into sales enthusiasm to improve your career and life, get my book “Selling Is Better Than Sex” today!

This book will provide you with more than 200 reasons why selling is even better than sex, and what you can do about it in order to improve your career and your life. This is not just another sales book – this is a revelation!

www.SellingIsBetter.com

The world’s oldest profession involves selling. One might even argue about which came first – the selling or the sex? In fact, selling and sex are so closely related that succeeding at either one of them can be euphoric, addictive, and good fun.
Some people might like to argue that selling is not better than sex. They believe it’s the other way round. In this post (and other following this one) I will give you many different reasons why selling IS better than sex.

For a start, it’s okay to make a sale in public.
In fact, the more people that witness the sale you’re making and the product you’re providing, the better! Also, when they see first-hand the customer’s satisfaction at having had an excellent sales experience, it inspires them to think about making their own purchase. This leads to word-of-mouth referrals where you earn a reputation for being the best at what you do. You become known as the expert in your line of work. But sex in public? Well, that may just get you into a lot of trouble. And let’s face it – a reputation for being promiscuous is perhaps not the way you want to go.

This brings us to the next point: that it is perfectly legal to sell professionally. The Ten Commandments don’t say anything about not selling. Yes, one of the commandments is “Thou shalt not commit adultery”, but Moses did not climb Mount Sinai to receive the instruction “Thou shalt not sell”. On the contrary, selling, bartering and trading were an essential source of income for many families, even in Moses’ time.
Nor is selling listed as one of the seven cardinal sins and the Pope makes no mention about the hazards of selling prior to marriage.

With a humorous twist, my posts will take you through the essentials of successful selling, illustrating that business can be fun and should be fun. Love what you do and do what you love. It’s about passion…it’s about creating the pathway for your own success and doing it with enthusiasm and zeal. Anyone who wakes up in the morning with passion in their heart will bound out of bed ready and eager to face the challenges of the day.

A positive attitude reaps rewards. It was Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company, who said:

“If you think you can do a thing or you think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.”

A positive attitude is the fuel that will drive your ability to achieve the tasks you undertake. Adopting an expectation of excellence and achievement is the first step to being successful at what you do.

You have the freedom to SELL! You can sell as much as you like, to whomever you like, for whatever the acceptable rate is, without exploiting yourself or bringing shame to your family name! Yes, selling IS definitely better than sex. And we’ll examine the reasons why more closely right here on this blog.

If you want to learn how to transfer the sex energy into sales enthusiasm to improve your career and life, and learn about other 200 reasons why selling is even better than sex, get my book “Selling Is Better Than Sex” today! www.SellingIsBetter.com

A sale is often completed in business without any inspection of the actual products by the purchaser; as when the sales person shows a picture of it with a catalog number. The “goods” are to be delivered later. However, the selling process is finished; though only the mind’s eye of the buyer has seen what he anticipates getting on his order. The sales person has presented nothing except certain ideas to the mental vision of the prospect. But these ideas have been sold so realistically to the imagination of the purchaser that he gives his order for what he expects.

Suppose the products delivered later do not correspond with the particular ideas about them that have been sold. For example, the device shipped is not the same as the sales person pictured when he got the order for it. Then there has been no sale of the different “goods.” The intending buyer bought particular ideas, and he will not accept the delivery of products unlike the ideas sold to him.

Sales person doesn’t really sell products. He or she sells ideas about products.

Let me give you an example: a real estate agent describes a bungalow to a potential home buyer. She shows plans and specifications, with accurate dimensions; there is no misrepresentation of any detail. The agent especially emphasizes that the bungalow would make a “cozy” home. The prospect decides to buy the property saying, “If it is as you describe it, I’ll take that place.”

The sale to his mind has been completed.

All that remains is delivery of a bungalow corresponding to the ideas sold. The delighted real-estate agent takes the buyer to the “cozy home”, but the empty rooms do not confirm the idea emphasized to the prospect. Real-estate agent has made the mistake of omitting to learn the other person’s conception of a cozy home before selling the expectation of coziness. She is shocked when the sale is canceled with the prospect’s contradiction of her description, “There’s nothing cozy about this place.”

The intending buyer of a home feels there has been a misrepresentation; though the bungalow is exactly like the plans and specifications shown to him. He was sold an idea that “the product” have not delivered; so he declares the sale off.

Remember this two steps next time when you are visiting your prospects: a sale is a successfully completed only when true ideas are sold, and afterward are delivered by the product or service.

During my workshops and seminars I am regularly being asked for my opinion on what is needed to be successful in sales. Here it is - a short list of things that every salesperson needs to do regularly, day-by-day, week-by-week, to ensure the continuous success in sales.

1. Never ever stop learning
2. Stay positive
3. Take time off
4. Stay in control of your emotions
5. Work with decision makers exclusively
6. Set your selling quota
7. Stay committed
8. Put the rubber on the road, not on the carpet
9. Stick to the system
10. Watch your language, appearance, and behavior
11. Get organized
12. Set small goals
13. Prepare a “to do” list each day
14. Cultivate contacts
15. Contact three past buyers a day
16. Contact three prospects a day
17. Become the number one communicator in your office
18. Increase your personal association with top performers
19. Know the nuts and bolts of the business
20. Improve your attitude to yourself, your company, and its products
21. Ask yourself, “Is this what you want?”

Success in this world is fundamentally a matter of selling, of using its principles whether in business, society, or politics, and applying them properly and effectively.

Are you suited up, trained and ready to get out there and win?

A person’s largest commercial reward in the world is receiving their full value for their services. Some receive less than they are worth, but what we hope for is that we receive our just and earned shares.
Who wants to buy a stock that misses or waives dividends, stands still, or decreases in value? You’ll find your answer in stock offerings that have no takers.
What company wants a treadmill runner who stands still or backpedals? You’ll find the answer to that question in the army of unemployed.

One morning Elizabeth Potter wakes up to find she is out of work. Her firm has been purchased and will be moving to another region of the country. Elizabeth is not in a position to move, so she begins to look for another job.

Along with hundreds of other emails, Elizabeth’s application slowly hits a company that is interested and grants her an interview. This position was carved to fit the person who is satisfied with what life chooses to give out to him or her – food, clothes, place to lay his or her head, and the right to exist.

But as she progresses, she is not satisfied with just a livable wage, and presents a well prepared portfolio of what she can do. She is hired for a gain in income.

Who did she beat out for this job? Hundreds of applicants both inside the company and out, who did not fight for what they were worth. Elizabeth showed what she could do. It was not just words. The amazing thing in this case is how the internal employees failed to demonstrate that they had the performance ability for the position.

By hiring someone who could demonstrate their abilities it may mean the company can save hundreds of thousands of dollars. No inside employee could match her ability to sell her competencies. It doesn’t mean they might not have those competencies; it does mean they didn’t sell them.

In another case a company is searching for a new auditor. Outsourcing costs are running too high and the international business work seems too much for the current auditor. In the New Z-Laser Company in Pittsburgh, a thirty-five-year-old dynamo, Bill Marin, is making a name for himself in the auditor’s position, and as a leading member of the professional auditing association. On top of it he has sought international finance and marketing expertise.

His ability has been noted by outsiders as well as by those above him. So, winding slowly through the grapevine, word reached the searching company that a right person for their open position exists. They send an invitation to Bill Martin for lunch.
One month later, entrenched behind a mahogany desk in a private office, Bill Martin is on that success road to a six figure salary.

In this case the job found the person. The CXO’s are congratulating themselves on having secured Bill’s services and are doing everything in their power to help him get a fair, square start.

Think it over.
Both Bill Martin and Elizabeth successfully sold themselves, purveyed their strong personalities, while hundreds of others, many that should have had an advantage by being current employees failed to make the effort. It did not happen overnight: both Bill and Elizabeth trained, expanded their talents, developed, and as their personal worth grew their incomes as well expanded. One of their trademarks was their dedication to a constant repetition of intended and steady tasks.

But an in-house employee should have been in line for that job. A person out of their own organization who had delivered every step of the way would have been far preferable at the time in the eyes of the employer. This person had overlooked the necessity of selling themselves and their possibilities to his employers.

There are three classes of workers:

1. The person who doesn’t try;
2. The person who builds their ability but fails to demonstrate it.
3. The person of success: a combination of ever-increasing ability and constant personality selling, who wins in spite of person barriers.

And, after all, you can be what you make yourself. Often just a little longer pull and a little stronger one and the sky is your earnings limit.

On the other hand, the person, who lies down and rests; who is satisfied at any point is lost. They become one of the vast wayside army which acts as background and scenery for the ones who really follow through.

For Bill and Elizabeth the future wore a cloak of question marks, too. But they pulled back that curtain and traveled the identical road that you are following. Therefore, there is no reason under a blue sky above why you can’t do as much.

Now I’m going to repeat: Step by step-constantly adding to your store of knowledge - constantly fitting yourself for the step ahead, that is a step above you: study and work; use every capability within you; develop your talents and create new ones; then build yourself, your ability, and your possibilities day by day; and sell yourself all the way.

When you stop to analyze it, a salesperson selling products has just exactly three things to do:

1. first find a customer,
2. then make the sales to happen,
3. and last, but not least, that sales person has to cultivate customers to buy more.

It all comes down to selling yourself - selling personality.

You are your own wares. The person who employs you is your customer. You’ve got to find your customer by locating a business that offers opportunity for you and needs what you have to offer. You have to make your first sale: actually land the position.
And then, where the salesperson’s work is to make his customers buy more of his products, your task is to build the value of your services and get a cash return - promotion - if you follow these steps.

First, as insurance against under-payment, learn to sell your personality and ability at its full market value.
Second, keep on building and adding to what you have to sell; day by day making yourself worth a little more, and year by year collect for it.

To learn more about the Crucial Points to Succeed in Sales (and Life) get my e-book here.

There has been a revolution in everything in our society except in sales. The sales industry has crawled while other professions have been running: “new” sales books are still talking about the same tips, tricks and techniques that were working in last century and bringing the success to sales people.

Certainly selling has the look of 20 or 30 years ago, features and benefits are still the main topic at every sales training, whether internally done or from an outside trainer, and management is pushing the same old ideas about cold calling and open-ended questions, but customers are changing rapidly in their behavior, buying habits, knowledge about the situation on the market, and most important - their expectations from sellers.

Selling itself is changing. Whole business environment is more dynamic, we have many and breaking new products on the market, and competition is bigger, harder, and stronger day-by-day. Buyers are more educated, they are searching for information by themselves, and they are looking from providers to understand buyer’s situation, needs and business.

Sales cannot continue to resolve twenty-first century situations in the business world using last-century tips and tricks. Tomorrow’s sales challenges cannot be met using last-century’s understandings and strategies. Those skills and information are not wrong; they are simply incomplete for today’s market. Unless this is acknowledged and the sales professional admits that he does not know all there is to know about sales and customers behavior, there can be no hope of continuing excellence in sales as is.

I believe it is finally the right time for the dinosaurs of sales to become extinct.

The 21st Century changes the rules of engagement. New knowledge is needed and also new set of tools which will include the technology, to help you in your search for your next customer.

Technology is developing at a pace that rarely anyone can catch up, and especially the last two decades many trained sales people are not in the position to utilize the advantages of the technology. In this regard, the technology can be your friend or foe.

Web 2.0 enables Sales 2.0 and many sales people can take customer communications into their own hands and to an entirely new level. Sales reps have more control over the tools that they use, and they can be always on, answering to customers questions in the matter of minutes and not hours or days.

Trigger events are great tool set to help you find new opportunities on the market for your product or service. With trigger events it will be easier for you to find companies that have immediate wants and needs. You are looking for events that can trigger the sales opportunity for you.

Trigger events can be divided depending where they have been triggered, inside or outside the company. Therefore we have two sorts of trigger events:

Internal trigger events are events triggered inside of the company or business.

External trigger events are one that we cannot influence, but we need to adapt to a newly created situation. It affects the customers’ success and could change business environment dramatically.

Learning about the trigger events, what they are, where to find and how to use them, your benefit is that with this newly acquired knowledge you will be able to qualify prospects faster and find your next customer much easier than before.

And not just that - you will be able to put customers in the market who didn’t feel that way before you contacted them. Trigger events can be a very powerful weapon for sales person who wants to be able to qualify prospects faster and understand his customers’ situation, and even identify needs with customers together.

With trigger events you will be better prepared for challenges that customers are putting in front of us each day. You will be equipped with a completely new set of tools needed to recognize who could be (and should be) on the market today for your product or services, giving you the better understanding where you should focus your selling activities.

Learning about this new set of tools you will be reminded, motivated, and pushed to do something more for your sales career and your sales numbers. A sales person needs to grow, to try to reach that next goal and to have a life filled with success in his or her profession, which makes life more worth living.

There are three different channels through which you make impressions upon customers with whom you come in contact:

1. PHYSICAL IMPRESSION - that which people gain through their eyes
2. MENTAL IMPRESSION - that which your strong personality makes on the minds of others without any effort
   on your part
3. CONSCIOUS IMPRESSION - that which you make by deliberately exercising certain acquired powers to influence in your favor customers with whom you come in contact

Today I will talk about sincerity as a part of point number 2 - mental impression, one which your strong personality makes on the other person’s mind without any conscious effort on your part.

Mental impression is developed by your mind qualities:

• Fearlessness
• Self-confidence
• Ambition
• Willpower
• Concentration
• Sincerity

So, what is Sincerity?

Birds of the same feather flock together. The person who goes through the world with a flippant, thoughtless attitude finds that others with the same attitude. You can’t talk insincerely and convey an impression of sincerity. And that is just about the whole philosophy of sincerity.

What is it anyway? Just honesty, and earnestly, and a deep-rooted, unshakable belief, all rolled into one. And when you’ve got it in you, the prospective buyer can’t help but feel it. If you expect to be believed, you have to believe yourself, be sincere.

Sincerity isn’t a tone of voice, a firm handshake or a look in the eyes. It goes beyond that: from top to bottom you’ve got to feel it yourself in order to get it across to others.

And sincerity, first of all, has got to last. In the regard, shortcuts from the straight road in selling and in business generally are always longer than the traveled path. An unfair deal - an insincere attitude - are sure to be discovered in the end; the wrong end.

You simply can’t avoid responsibility for your actions and your words when you are contacting your prospects for the first time, or when you are presenting your (tailored) solution to your customers. Not as a question of ethics or morals, but as a result of the plain, ordinary, everyday variety of that uncommon trait called common sense.

Making your way the sincere way will pay.

To impress people with your sincerity, be sincere in selling.

(Much more about other mind qualities you can find in my e-book “Crucial Points to Succeed in Sales”.)

Big money makers take matters into their own hands. They don’t sit around waiting for the next sale to walk through the door.

They know the number one mistake salespeople make is delaying or neglecting their own ongoing sales education.

That’s why I am recommending an excellent sales advice book written by 50 leading experts. It costs a whopping 25 bucks, so the publisher has thrown in 3 grand in complimentary sales tools for you from top sales and business growth leaders, including my Cheat sheet – Correcting Your Weak Points (don’t guess about when to close – get the figures).

I think you’ll find this well worth investigating.

See it here.